the system has it's flaws

So I've been attempting to claim job seekers allowance while I am on the scout for work, and housing benefit. Yesterday my housing benefit entitlement came through, which is great, because the landlord keeps asking when he's going to get his money. As it happens I get less than my rent is, but figured I could make it up out of my jobseekers....I'll be skint for a short while, but I'll reap the benefits when I do start earning the pennies again.

Got to love the system.

This morning I got the letter from the jobseeker people to inform me that the ammount one is able to live on is £50.95 a week. Ok, so that's fair enough, given that politicians claim vast ammounts of expenses...it seems that in fact they do only spend that of their own money each week. So of course they know that one can live extremely well on that sort of money. And of course £20 a week also muct go to landlord, leaving me with about £30 a week for myself. So long as I can eat I'm really not too fussed, and honestly, not eating much wont do me any harm.

I knew there would be problems. You see I have myself a job really. A job that I think is great, the problem arises because the work is casual, it's not regular, just casual. The fact that it's based 30 miles from where I live, and I have no car at the moment, so can't work seems to be irrelevent, well it is irrelevant. the fact of the matter is, by looking back at the 2 tax years prior to this one some lovely chump has calculated that I earn myself a whopping £30 a week, leaving me with only £20 to come into my account. Can't help but love those guys. So I have called and asked my entitlement to be reconscidered, but I shan't hear anything until Monday or Tuesday owing to the fact that they are working on 48 hours call-back time as they are dealing with so many otehr things at the moment. Deep joy.

It may be that my only option is for me to come off the pay-role at work and return to the pay-role once I have got myself full-time employment so I can tax my car and get back into work. I thought the whole point was to be getting into work, not forcing me out of it, just so I can eat.

See.....the system has it's flaws!!